Employing part-time workers

Employing part-time workers has a range of potential business benefits, such as:

• being an efficient way to keep costs down in areas where you don't yet need full-time cover
• increasing recruitment and retention of staff by offering family-friendly working practices
• being able to show potential clients and customers that you value having a diverse workforce and ethical employment practices
• allowing you to bring in highly skilled and experienced staff members even when you have a fixed budget and can't afford to bring someone in on a full-time basis
• expanding the pool of potential recruits - part-time work tends to attract parents with younger children and older people, who may not want to work full-time but can bring a wealth of skills, experience and expertise
• increasing the ability of your business to respond to change and peaks of demands - for example, you can use more workers at peak times and extend your operating hours by using part-time workers in the evening or at weekends
• helping to reduce the workloads of other workers, eg when you don't have enough work for a new full-time position but are regularly using overtime to meet demands - this can reduce your overtime costs and help prevent the negative effects of stress and fatigue